LOST SOULS Pleased to Meet You
by Gh0st
Summary: Ghost and Steve on the road again and...another rambling no-point fic.


Title: Hope You Guessed My Name

Notes: Another fic that was just...there and for no reason at all aside from my fingers wanted to write it. Just a little thing for my own Steve, once again, because my partner makes me want to write stuff. I guess it's somewhere after '_Stay Awake_'. It was really just something to do while on holiday in Spain with nothing but a Game Boy, a laptop and my soul-mate for entertainment.

In honesty, I don't know if I can see Ghost singing the song he does in this fic, but it was playing and it seemed to fit in some areas. Still, enjoy. Hopefully, this will go on my Lost Souls fansite, whenever I get around to getting it finished.

Disclaimer: I don't own the lovely Ghost and Steve, I just find them a wonderful couple of characters to write. Just for now, call my stupid for clinging to Poppy's old work. I adore her new work just as much as her old, Ghost and Steve will always, for my own personal reasons, hold a place in my heart that none of her other work will match.

- - -

"Pleased to meet you," Ghost wailed out into the warm night air "I hope you guess my name."

His pale white-gold hair whipping around his face as the T-bird rode down the empty highway of two in the night world.

There were strange things out during the witching hours, and Ghost could feel each one as they whistled past.

Steve found that song reminded him a little too much of old not fully healed scars, but somehow it was Ghost's voice soothing across those lyrics that made those wounds hurt that little bit less. Without Ghost, it would be unbearable. Without him, it wasn't fair to force himself to keep going.

He wouldn't have turned metaphorical and emotional wounds into real ones. Of course, Steve wouldn't admit it but he knew he was far too cowardly to ever really open up a vein- it would take too long to get it all over with. No, he'd drive at top speeds into a wall or over a cliff, something quick and would leave his final farewell to the shit-hole of life.

But not while Ghost was with him, with that golden voice and warm mental caress. It didn't matter what they were. Steve knew who they were and that was all that really mattered- they were brothers, they were partners in crime, soul mates, wounded children holding each other up as the world sliced them with razor malice without any sense of remorse.

Sometimes, that was worse than any other kind of wound. And a lot of the time, despite the fact Steve liked to think of himself as Ghost's protector, he knew and always had known that, when it came to real pain, Ghost always took the blunt on for him. When it hit Steve, it was only small flickering remains to cause the odd painful nick here and there.

"I shouted out 'Who killed the Kennedy's?', when after all, it was you and me," Ghost continued, his head tilting back as he stared up at the stars overhead.

While everything else sped past them, the stars always stayed exactly where they were, mocking their attempts to run out from under their gaze. In a way, it was oddly comforting to know they were always going to be watched by those stars.

"So let me please, introduce myself, I'm the man of wealth and taste," Ghost went on, holding a hand up toward the spill of white sparks against the deep night skies. A tribute to them and a thank you to the protective floating spirits who watched over them wherever they went.

He was in a good mood in the sticky heated night air and despite the demons drifting in the lyrics of that song, Steve wasn't going to shit on the mood and kill the song out.

"Yeah right," he snorted, eyeing a small gathering of little goth kids on a shadowed street corner. Their monochrome faces painted white with black eyes and lips lit up orange and black as Halloween trademark colours with a flash of a flaring twist of paper being passed around between their slender young fingers with their sloppily painted black chipped fingernails.

They all looked lost and like they hated the world for one reason or another. Steve bet his bottom dollar that they all had a roof over their head, food to fill their stomachs (even if they insisted on refusing it if provided), and the extent or their tormented lives consisted of not being allowed to break their midnight curfew or were refused that distasteful skull tattoo by their mother and father, but were intending on getting the thing done eventually all the same.

Steve grunted and looked away. _Such tough lives they've had_, said the voice of the cynic in his head.

Ghost kept staring at them, even after they were becoming small black fishnet and velvet dots behind them. He was always doing that and Steve knew full well why. He was always glancing over those little stranded groups hoping to catch sight of the boy who a few years ago sent a postcard to their home, his name signed with swooping tails of the N and G and a dagger striking downward as a T.

Ghost longed to catch a glimpse of him, if only for a second, if only for a moment where their eyes would meet and lock for that speeding second. Ghost would feel an electric jump of Nothing catching his breath, feel his shock and excitement, and then a spasm of emotion, all he wanted to tell Ghost, all he'd been doing, how happy he was to see him again, everything would pour out in less than a second. He'd scream out that boy's name to get his attention, even if he knew he wouldn't need to. And then, Ghost would fall back breathless and happy just to see he was alive and well.

Whether Steve would be as happy as he, or would even force himself to make the car stop and allow Ghost to have his little brief reunion with the little blood-sucker was another matter however.

But they'd worry about that when the day rolled around. And Ghost knew it would happen again one day. One day, he would meet Nothing again and be a real brother for him, if only for a second or two.

Steve, grabbed the back of Ghost's shirt and dragged him back into his seat at last, shooting him a short glance. Ghost peered back at him a moment, then shrugged off the silent scolding and turned his eyes back to the stars.

"Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name," Ghost resumed once more "But what's puzzling you, is the nature of my game."

Steve grumbled to himself under his breath, he'd force the car over soon then force Ghost to shut the hell up. But not just yet.

"...have a little courtesy, have some sympathy and some taste..." Ghost yawned and Steve silently gave a little thank you before dragging the car into an empty car park which had long since turned into a ghost-lot.

Ghost said nothing as Steve clambered clumsily into the back seat, waiting for the last of the song to drown itself out of his mind before arching himself into the seat in a stretch, then following Steve.

He was in a good enough mood to just allow himself to fall right into Steve, his slender arms flopped over his shoulders, his chest and stomach against Steve's own and his face nestling into the crock of his neck. Steve almost, for a brief second thought about shoving Ghost off him- it was too soft, too natural and too much like being with her again. But then he remembered the different warm buzz he got, he recalled it wasn't her and never would be again. In a way, he was glad.

Dead or not, fuck her. She wanted to run off and chase green-eyed vampires like a blinded fool, it wasn't his job to save her but at least he'd tried. So fuck her. It was her problem. In whatever existence there was after death, he almost hoped she chased Zillah for all eternity for how stupid she'd been.

Of course he wasn't bitter, that was just silly.

Ghost caught those feelings often though, like that sharp aftertaste of coffee without milk or sugar, or chocolate he hated, but it left a horrible after taste in his emotions. It was bad enough Ann came to see him, that she blamed them, that she resented them both for still being alive, for Ghost betraying her trust and letting Steve fall into the comfort he offered.

It was bad enough he knew she was outside that very moment, in the graveyard of cars, staring into the window, glaring at them, hating them when they kissed, despising when Steve undressed his best friend as he used to do for her, loathing when Steve was more passionate and gentle with Ghost then he'd ever been with her.

Ever so often she wondered if Steve had ever thought of Ghost when he had fucked her when she'd been alive.

_Fuck you both_, she'd say to Steve. But of course, he never heard and it enraged her that Ghost could and never passed on her words of spite to him.

Ghost was content to ignore her for now, he could tell her to leave, but she never did. He tried over and over, tried to explain, tried to be forgiven. He didn't believe he ever would be.

In the end however, Steve was alive and needed him more than Ann did. And in the end, Ghost just always loved Steve that much more, and he always would. That much was as sure as the stars would be there each and ever night.

Ghost wasn't afraid of Ann. He never had been and he wouldn't start just because she was dead. He'd told her that and would continue telling her. She'd never listen.

He pulled himself closer to Steve, feeling Ann give up for a little while, drifting away once more, possibly to search for a green-eyed angel also bound to the earth.

Ghost felt bad- he knew she'd never find him. He wasn't even sure if angel's like Zillah carried real souls after so long.

Closing his eyes, Ghost let his head tilt gratefully into Steve's hand twisting gently between his strands of hair. It just felt good to feel him beside him, to feel their hearts beating together as one, to read Steve's drifting thoughts.

_I never fucking needed her,_ Ghost heard despite himself, _I got you. I don't need her._

Ghost curled closer to Steve, touching his hands to his chest, idly brushing a small bump on his chest under his shirt, and another on the other side of his breast area. Everything Ghost did was so damn asexual, but somehow it drove Steve into strange places he'd never been.

After a moment, Steve flipped himself over and Ghost under, too much practice from past sex in the back seat perhaps. A bad thought, hush brain, he told himself shortly before lowering his head to gently capture Ghost's mouth, swallowing a little sweet gasp he made like a floating candyfloss ball.

Sex with Steve was as strange as kissing him was, but at the same time it was natural. Ghost would no more refuse to make love with Steve as he would refuse to sing with him or tell him a strange dream he'd experienced. He couldn't deny Steve anything. They needed each other too much to do so.

The scent of sex, sweat and something warm and magic soaked into the car and vaguely Ghost hoped that the old thing never really died. It held too much in it, too many memories from himself and Steve. He hoped Steve never really did do what he threatened to and dump the clump of metal somewhere. Though really, Ghost knew that Steve loved the old girl too much to just discard her somewhere to rot and break.

"Hey," Steve muttered humidly against Ghost's ear as he trailed a hand across his pale, mildly moist chest "You're still here."

Ghost lifted his head a little, the moonlight outside reflecting in his eyes for a second before he smiled without really moving his lips too much.

"Yeah. Problem?" he asked vaguely.

Steve shrugged, coiling his arms protectively around Ghost and brushing his nose against his shoulder.

"Never said it was, just surprised that's all."

Ghost of course caught the end part of the sentence that Steve never vocalised.

_Since I didn't expect you to stick around much longer._

Ghost squeezed his hand a little. He didn't need to tell Steve he'd always be there. If Steve was painfully honest to himself then he knew full well that unless he actually told him too, and backed it up with inner feeling, Ghost would never leave his side.

Warm, sticky rain tugged down against the windows. Ghost was glad he didn't lift his head to see those drops running with Ann's angry, deathly tears of frustration. He'd ignore the way she shrieked at Steve through the glass. He'd ignore it all and just doze in the comforting humidity their bodies made together, he'd sleep through after he was sure Steve had fallen asleep before him.

And when they woke the next day, they'd go somewhere else. They were still young, still with energy to see and do everything. It was more fun with someone to share it with.


End file.
